142

Alien Minds and the Will to Believe

Edward Curtin

Once upon a time in my youthful naiveté, I would mock those who said they believed in out-of-space aliens and flying saucers.

In my hubris, I even wrote an extensive academic paper saying that the popularity of science fiction and the myth of planetary escape provided by the UFO cults and the media served the function of distracting us from earthly problems connected to the changing social structure of western societies and the concomitant transformation of our symbol systems from the traditionally religious to the scientific and technologically based.

I argued that there was something devious in this new narrative, like the story of astronauts playing golf on the moon.  Although I didn’t then say it, I imagined the next public relations stunt would be ping pong on Mars.  But I now know that ping pong is a Chinese dominated sport.

I must confess that I have never seen a space movie like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Star Wars or the television series Star Trek; and I have never read any science fiction, like Childhood’s End

I was always repulsed by such fantasies, since figuring out what was going on here on earth was hard enough to grasp. They always seemed like a diversion to me. Of course, I have studied their storylines and know about them, and fiction is fiction, right? The movies and television shows aren’t real, right?

Culture, I argued in my youthful academic days, is the higher learning we are all subjected to; and culture rests upon the crystallization of a symbolic order that was then changing.

I was writing about the late 1960s and early 1970s when the promotion of esoterica of all kinds was widespread and growing madly.  And as Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic:

Faith is the compulsive dynamic of culture, channeling obedience to, trust in, and dependence upon authority.”

I then sensed we were undergoing a massive symbolic transformation in which the controlling symbolic (from Greek: to throw together) order was being replaced by a diabolic (from Greek: to throw apart) order (that controlled in a different way) and new stories were emerging that would not order people’s lives but would disorder them as they were offered a pastiche of choices to scramble their brains so “they would never know” for sure.

This was all happening at the time of the political assassinations of the 1960s, the war against Vietnam, the drug and sexual revolution, the crisis in traditional religion, the turn to the east especially among the young, women’s liberation, etc.

As a sociologist, I was following a tradition of theorizing that tries to describe social change and how culture organizes personality through its symbol systems, in this case the crisis happening between the mainstream faith in science and the counter-cultural reactions and the ways this alleged either/or was being manipulated.

Silly as it now sounds, I argued that as a result of the failure of rational, scientific, and technological culture to replace the traditional religious symbolic plausibility structure it destroyed, resulting in a deep existential void of meaning, an alternative myth about outer space and extraterrestrial life was promulgated to divert people’s attention from the creation of our Nazi-run military space program, nuclear weapons, and the military-industrial complex’s nihilistic intention to use them. 

I was so naïve then.

My thesis was that through this symbolic transformation, power over all life and death passed from God to men, and a need arose to provide a story about the gods’ continuing existence.  Thus the UFO and outer space motifs whereby alien gods – through the technique of deus ex machina – might swoop down in flotillas of extraterrestrial spacecraft and swoop up the deserving ones to a beautiful beyond while the rest of the world was incinerated in a nuclear war, a staple storyline of science fiction.  Of course they might also rape you; but they were the bad aliens who were at odds with the good. 

 ET and The X Files were still to come.

This myth of outer space was joined to a widespread rise in the promotion of occult phenomena – astrology, the Tarot, alchemy, crystal balls, satanism, witchcraft, spiritualism, etc. – that opened up all kinds of alternative, hypnotic visions of other lives past “death,” incredible new visions of inner “realities” and the cosmos, spiritual journeys to worlds unheard of, aided or not by the fuel of psychedelic drugs that were pushed by the CIA.

Thus the gods within were added to the alien gods without and new faiths were born – or rather, created.

These were mixed in a witches mélange with mainstream science or pseudo-science to create an anti-faith faith in forces that could save or destroy us, whether they be aliens, astronauts, or Indian gurus such as the creator of Transcendental Meditation (TM), Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose exotic teachings were married to pseudo-science and promoted as a way to reduce crime and violence and bring peace to Earth.

This, I maintained in my youthful ignorance, was not a cultural accident. Mass cultural confusion seemed to have a malign purpose that was setting us up for a reactionary backlash that would return us back to the future. To a time when we could “never really know” but knew what we were meant to know.

That was in my old life as a scholar.  I was so much younger then but I’m older than that now.

For a few years, I have just been a regular beer-swigging normal dude walking unpaved roads and woodland hikes looking for the wildlife.  I have dispensed with the books.  I have recently had a revelation, like Saul on the road to Damascus but without the light or falling down. I heard no voices. It happened inauspiciously.

A while back I learned of a nice, peaceful place to take a walk down by the river across an old covered bridge down a dirt road where lovely birds could be seen and heard. I was surprised to learn of this place since I have lived here a long time and have sought out every wild country walk I could find. But serendipity happens and epiphanies occur.

Three years ago when I first walked the bridge over troubled water, the place was deserted.  On the other side of the twisting Housatonic River, I was surprised to see a large stone monument with an inscription signed by the governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker. I knew Baker, a Republican, like the former governor Mitt Romney, was the type of “mild” Republican that the overwhelmingly Democratic voters generally didn’t complain about. 

The monument commemorated a 1969 UFO event, attesting to it being “the first off-world/UFO case in US history” when a nine-year-old boy named Thomas Reed and his family were said to have encountered a UFO and were taken out of their car by the aliens to a cavernous enclosure with strange lights. Beamed up and out in other words. Then deposited back in their car.

I had mocked such reports before but this one was endorsed by the mild-mannered and thoroughly establishment Charlie Baker, a former CEO of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, and I was shocked. So I read about it and discovered it had been a big event in the area on the night of September 1, 1969 when about 40 others reported seeing a UFO.

It made me laugh at people’s gullibility since remnants of my intellectual skepticism still clung to my numbskull. The more I learned about it, the less I believed it, despite Baker’s endorsement.

When I again returned to the spot a few years later, the monument was gone, and I learned a controversy had ensued, some people had complained, and the town had hauled the monument away. Now there is a smaller round shaped plaque on a metal pole commemorating the event.

It seems the 1969 event caused mass confusion, which would seem appropriate for that time and place, as my youthful writings about culture at large explained. This was two weeks following Woodstock, the height of the Vietnam War, twelve days after the release of the movie, Alice’s Restaurant, based on the 1967 experience of local resident Arlo Guthrie’s famous encounter and song about getting anything you want at Alice’s restaurant, a local establishment run by Alice Brock that attracted hippies and counterculturists from all over.

Clearly something was happening here, what it was wasn’t exactly clear, since you could get anything you wanted in those tumultuous times. And anything and everything was everywhere in the culture.

But things are so different now.

We are all older and wiser. We follow the science. We just do what we’re told. We read the papers about the new government report about UFOs or what they now call UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena). There are some things we just don’t know but others that we think we do, just like the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies. 

That’s what they say, isn’t it, and they wouldn’t lie? We follow the science today. The CDC wouldn’t lie, right?  We just do what we’re told.

The creator of the television show, The X-Files, Chris Carter has a prominent Op-Ed guest essay in the New York Times to explain why he so desperately wants to believe in aliens and how he actually does so without actually admitting it.

Along the way, Carter makes sure to slyly tell us he knows the truth about COVID-19:

We are living in times of uncertainty, where truth may be unknowable. I don’t have to tell you this has bred a universe of rampant conspiracy theories. From the Covid conspiracy documentary “Plandemic” to the idea that we’re living in a black hole created by the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider when we discovered the Higgs boson.

He follows the science. He thinks truth may be unknowable, a saying that you may have heard before. You know: “We’ll never know.” Except for certain truths. For he knows all about the pandemic and aliens.  And he tells us:

When we were dressing the original set for Agent Mulder’s office on “The X-Files,” I came up with the poster with a UFO on it that reads “I Want to Believe.” And I think that’s where most people come down on the whole extraterrestrial business. Not quite there yet, but waiting for a sign.

I’m not waiting. I’m there. I received the sign. I know. I got there just a few days ago when again, in my newfound clarity devoid of my old intellectual perspective, I walked that bridge over troubled waters and saw a large piece of metal lying in a watery ditch right where Thomas Reed described his abduction. It was new and very shiny. Talk about signs!

If that isn’t science, I don’t know what is.

Direct observation has brought me to the truth.  The aliens came back and lost a bumper. Although you might say that’s just circumstantial evidence, I must disagree. It’s not a symbol, I know that. I saw it with my “eyes wide shut.” I follow the science. Life is not a movie, is it?

I once thought the UFO people were crazy and there was a concerted effort to confuse people.  But I was so much younger then.  I’m older than that now.

Carter ends his essay by saying, “I want to believe.”

I say: Lords, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies.

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Joki
Joki
Jul 17, 2021 11:51 PM

Some random, and not so random, thoughts/observations:

The “ali” as a group are the wise ones. They are the stars that wheel eternally about the pole star, and are known as its companions. They’ve been known as the Bear and her 7 cubs, the Big and Little Dippers, the Thigh of Heaven and many other names besides.

They are keepers of knowledge for the simple reason that they provided our first means of timekeeping. (Incidentally: Ever notice that the big and little “dippers” rotate around the pole star exactly like hands around a clockface? Neat, huh?)

They are wise husbandmen, these Ali or “companions”, because they predict the seasons, and usher in the harvest and so on. Again, just a way of saying the stars help us track time and thus regulate our food supply. Dead simple. Nothing mystical about it.

The “aliens” as a word, a term, is simply a play on those earlier symbols, in that any people or beings who “come from the stars” must necessarily be from these “ali” hence they are “aliens”.

It’s pretty simple once you strip it down to natural fact.

Another clue in this direction lies in the concept of “elves”, often cited as the “first” among peoples in various fantasy literature or myth. The “elf” is but a slight variation on the aleph, meaning “first; the first one/s”.

The elves and the aliens are thus symbols of the same idea: wise ancient ones, who come from either “the stars” or “the depths/dawn of time” which, if you take a moment to think about it, amount to the same thing because the stars ARE our oldest timekeepers.

The “Annunaki” represent the same damn problem. Allegorical myth interpreted as physical fact. The simple truth is that they represent elementals. “Primal forces” envisioned by our ancestors as emmanating from “the Nun”, meaning the celestial waters, i.e. the natural universe. They represent light, dark, water, air, fire and so on. As a collective they are represented as a group of “beings” only for the sake of the myth. When the myth is then passed on without the corresponding natural facts with which to unlock it, error ensues, and people then claim them as “evidence” of ancient astronauts.

Well, they kinda were, but not at all in a literal sense.

So it goes.

To paraphrase someone more eloquent: “Do not take the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.”

Red Allover
Red Allover
Jul 8, 2021 12:44 AM

The idea that our species might have Smarter Older Siblings is one that many people find deeply disturbing and threatening. On the other hand, with 100 billion stars in the galaxy, is it really rational to insist that we must be the only intelligent life form in the universe?

Walter White
Walter White
Jul 14, 2021 6:48 AM
Reply to  Red Allover

You missed the entire point of the piece

Tamara
Tamara
Jul 3, 2021 3:39 AM

The word “I” appears 201 times in this short, self-indulgent piece …

Joki
Joki
Jul 18, 2021 12:06 AM
Reply to  Tamara

Which, from a statement analysis perspective, provides a wealth of information about the writer. Hint: take everything you just read with oh about a gazillion grains of salt or so ought to do the trick.

Walter White
Walter White
Jul 1, 2021 5:50 AM

I’ve read volumes on ufology and I believe the young academic you were those many years ago was right then and is right now.

Kevin
Kevin
Jul 1, 2021 2:57 AM

here is the UAP “preliminary assessment” report that was ordered by congress. Be forewarned, its a shitshow. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2cH0NeoqdTzfd33mvPElERfsNBFax2fRO7gopkMkLR_qWPC3CNVQFYQGw In 9 pages they make not A SINGLE STATEMENT on even the POSSIBILITY that these craft are extra-terrestrial. In fact, they do not mention aliens or et once at all – not a single word. In fact, they are even brazen enough to use the “weather balloon” explanation as an example. This is a shit show. “Our analysis of the data supports the construct that if and when individual UAP incidents are resolved they will fall into one of five potential explanatory categories: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, USG or U.S. industry developmental programs, foreign adversary systems, and a catchall “other” bin.” “Although most of the UAP described in our dataset probably remain unidentified due to limited data or challenges to collection processing or analysis, we may require additional scientific knowledge to successfully collect on, analyze and characterize some of them. We would group such objects in this category pending scientific advances that allowed us to better understand them. The UAPTF intends to focus additional analysis on the small number of cases where a UAP appeared to display unusual flight characteristics or signature management.”

Researcher
Researcher
Jun 30, 2021 10:09 PM

Nuclear weapons aren’t any more real than aliens. There are no nuclear weapons. All they have is white phosphorus and toxic chemicals in conventional bombs. Dinosaurs are a total fraud. Oil is abiotic. The pyramids are only a few hundred years old and built by Freemasons out of cast stone. Viruses never existed. Read Florence Nightingale‘s notes. Poisoning and toxicity is the entirety of why people are sickened and die. It’s not invisible microbes. No men ever went to the moon and the JFK assassination wasn’t because he was decent or honest. He was neither. It was just a tool to traumatize a nation. A ritual designed by psychopaths. Possibly an elaborate hoax. The predecessor to 9-11.

Anything that Hollywood has ever pushed is pre-programming propaganda. Including the idea that governments are legitimate or democratic. They (Hollywood and the CIA) are obsessed with cop and crime shows that inure people to violence and make them believe that crime is disproportionate, terror events and pandemics are real. Legal dramas too, are to con people into believing the legal system is valid, when it’s only a way to protect corporations who kill and steal with impunity.

Project Blue Beam is what this alien programming is really about. The plot to merge individual religions into one and bring forth a one world government. The plan has obviously been modified since it was first conceptualized by NASA and exposed by Serge Monast.

If there’s one useful thing this year has shown me is that nearly everything I was ever taught at school and read in textbooks was a bunch of useless lies, frauds and long cons and almost nothing on the news is true.

Sam - Admin2
Admin
Sam - Admin2
Jun 30, 2021 11:16 PM
Reply to  Researcher

Are you serious, do you really think Dinosaurs are faked? How come fossil hunters can crack open prehistoric rock on Jurassic UK coastlines and find fossils? Is there a secret and vast industry of people planting fake sedimentary rock on beaches and within huge rocks in quarries?

Further, the pyramids and certain artefacts challenge even 21st century tech, let alone 18th or 19th century. They can be traced in historic literature back and back and back. And why fake those exactly? To bamboozle some local Egyptians who would have seen them being constructed anyway??

I just think you’re taking this too far. Please, let’s stick to evidence-based discussion. If you’re joking then my apologies. A2

Researcher
Researcher
Jul 1, 2021 3:03 AM
Reply to  Sam - Admin2

I didn’t invent this. It’s out there, in plain view: Dinosaurs are fake.

There’s a long history of faking fossils. It’s big business. Particularly in regard to the ever changing dinosaur frauds. 

The Freemasons are obsessed with the Great Pyramids. Is it normal to have all these bizarre ceremonies? Seems odd!

Napoleon might have been involved with the pyramids and Sphinx construction.

Cast stone/concrete blocks.

Certain frauds have already been discovered in connection to the Pyramids. 

Also the pyramids aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Even though I’m agnostic, you’d think if they existed in ancient Egypt they’d be mentioned in those texts. At least by the second printing of KJV.

I don’t know why they continually perpetrate fraud. You’d probably have to study Freemasonry and Masonic sects to understand why they commit hoaxes and frauds, particularly in regards to history, and in the scientific fields.

It’s much easier to control people when you simply repeat lies, all day, every day. The bigger and more fantastic the lie, the easier to sell. And of course, there’s the money making aspect to all of the frauds. That seems to be the initial motive. Exploitation and profit.

“When the human race learns to read the language of symbolism, a great veil will fall from the eyes of men. They shall then know truth and, more than that, they shall realize that from the beginning truth has been in the world unrecognized, save by a small but gradually increasing number appointed by the Lords of the Dawn as ministers to the needs of human creatures struggling co regain their consciousness of divinity.” Manly P. Hall

malcolm ripley
malcolm ripley
Jul 1, 2021 4:04 PM
Reply to  Sam - Admin2

All the evidence will be dismissed as “fake” and attributable to someone/people etc who cannot refute the accusation! Nice circular self fulfilling logic.

plasos
plasos
Jul 2, 2021 6:12 AM
Reply to  Researcher

Nice commentary, surprised to find here even and yeah we need to «deconstruct» all what we’ve learned.

Researcher
Researcher
Jul 2, 2021 2:00 PM
Reply to  plasos

Thanks. I think people are unwilling to examine everything we have been told through this constant and relentless repetition. This Prussian school of education model that was adopted in the 1600’s is simply learning by rote and repeating. Ivan Illich’s ‘Deschooling Society‘ and ‘Medical Nemesis‘ should be a starting point for re-evaluation, not an end point.

As a society, we have become repeaters instead of thinkers. Most refuse to examine the education system as a form of indoctrination into obeisance and meaningless corporate servitude. We are never taught anything important like how money is made out of thin air, why our birth certificates are bonded and collateralized, or why private banks are printing currency for these “governments” that declared themselves masters of the population and rule by intimidation, coercion, tyrannical and authoritarian methods. It’s inherently wrong to claim authority over another human. Therefore these governments are not legitimate, let alone democracies.

Nothing should be off the table when we question the world around us, or people’s behavior (like the mask wearing, and self euthanasia vaccine arm offering) using mass brainwashing techniques. People’s willingness to abdicate their own authority, power and even their sense of reason or logic, just to stand with the majority, out of fear of being ridiculed or outcast. I’m a woman and I wonder constantly where the men are that will stand up to the tyranny and expose the liars and criminals in governments and corporations. How can we continue to live in a system where everyone is too scared and too financially dependent to act with any integrity, truth or courage?

We should let go of our personal or emotional attachment to the memes they’ve shoved down our throats since early childhood and look at the physical evidence available, avoiding scientific jargon or overly complicated methods using machinery or techniques that are unverifiable.

And we should be highly skeptical when museums won’t let independent scientists or researchers examine bones and artifacts. I believe we should step back and always attempt to see the bigger picture. If they (Masonic sects, Monarchies, governments and organized religions) have been erasing our true history and replacing it with a false history and a false perception of the world, ourselves and our reality, then we need to revaluate and deconstruct everything, as you wrote. Especially our attachment to materialism, education and authority.

Loverat 8
Loverat 8
Jul 2, 2021 10:20 PM
Reply to  Researcher

Researcher

Whether the queries over dinosaurs and pyramids (I looked at that) have strong merit or not, I think your points on thinking are very well argued. Im very impressed by your points. Perhaps during these times, no matter how progressive and free thinking we might think we all are, we should reflect on what has been ingrained in us from a very young age.

The Fleecer
The Fleecer
Jun 30, 2021 2:18 AM

Once I looked into this subject enough I found.
1. The authorities most definitely have had a program of misinformation, marginalising and debunking of this subject since the 1950s (The Robertson Panel).
2. The US military has had ET material since 1947.
3. These craft are obsessed with our nuclear silos.
4. The aliens treat us like we treat animals. There’s a lot to learn from that alone.
5. The latest release is stuff is just another step in some plan

CognitiveDissonance
CognitiveDissonance
Jun 30, 2021 8:04 PM
Reply to  The Fleecer

The visual UFO sightings are ball lightning.

The US military has the ability to spoof all sensors including RADAR which is what the UFO sensor tracks are.

No mystery just a plot for more funding.

el Gallinazo
el Gallinazo
Jun 29, 2021 8:22 PM

The scientific establishment wants you to believe that they have a near total handle on reality. Just a matter of extending the physical constants of the universe by one more significant figure by building billion dollar devices. However, they have recently discovered that not only is the universe expanding, but its expansion is accelerating, which means that there is an unknown force causing it. This has resulted in calculations that dark energy and matter (dark meaning invisible and only detectable by its effect on matter) accounts for 94% of the mass-energy of the universe. Physical matter and energy account for only 6%. They are totally clueless as to what this “stuff” is. Since this is the most fundamental knowledge there is about the universe we live in, or appear to live in anyway, maybe that handle is not so well tightened.

Also, I have taken an interest in the Nag Hammadi scriptures which were a large number of scrolls found in a cave in Egypt in a large, sealed urn in 1945. They are written in Coptic in the Greek alphabet and have been reliably dated to the 3rd or 4th century. They claim to be written (obviously transcribed) by the disciples of Jesus including John, Thomas, Judas, and even more shockingly, Mary Magdalene. In some cases they are statements about the nature of reality from sources who did not sign off on their authorship. The statements purportedly made by Jesus differ very significantly from our bible of today as curated by the emperors of Rome. 

According to this, Jesus was the source of the Gnostic interpretation of the physical universe, which is the massive deception perpetrated by a high ranking entity of the real, spiritual universe. This entity, referred to by many names including the
Demiurge, the Chief Archon, Zeus by the Greeks, Yaldabaoth, Lucifer, Yawveh, and others, was a third generation emination of the Source of Everything, created by a second generation emanation, Sophia, who basically screwed up and produced a psychotic monster. He decided that he wanted to be the Source of Everything so he created a shoddy facsimile of the spiritual universe, and here we all are. 

The film The Matrix was obviously and symbolically based on these teachings, though they changed a multidimensional entity to artificial intelligence, and the substance being sucked dry from entranced humans living in a simulation, from spiritual energy which the Demiurge lost the power to produce himself to conventional energy.

jimbojames
jimbojames
Jun 29, 2021 3:16 PM

so many thoughts, where to begin?

It’s funny, if true, that symbolic ‘comes from Greek’,
meaning to throw together, since I’m pretty sure
Shambala preceded the Greeks by thousands of years
if not eons.

Another was that I too now get how culture has nothing
to do with imparting knowledge to the next gen, but
rather cults/cultures propagate false beliefs almost deliberately.
In fact, I think it’s totally deliberate, or absolutely necessary,
even vital for cults/cultures to prop up false beliefs. I don’t think
any cult/culture can survive critical study of it (look at the
supposed fervor against teaching children to hate America,
if it means teaching truthful history).

It seems to me all cults/cultures collapses the minute they’re put
under a microscope, and so resistance to questioning your culture
by the State is built into the ground floor of all so-called civilizations.

Luke
Luke
Jun 29, 2021 10:39 AM

No research done into the topic whatsoever, but reprimanding the “uneducated” masses from your high chair of academic wisdom. Embarrassing.

Edward Curtin
Edward Curtin
Jun 29, 2021 4:12 PM
Reply to  Luke

If you read the first two-thirds of the article, you would know that I have done extensive research into the the matter, as I say early on. If by research you mean watching Hollywood movies and reading best selling sci-fi, as if that were research, then you are right but wrong about what constitutes research. Why you assume I occupy some high chair of academic wisdom, or ever did, is quite an assumption. It’s factually wrong. I never reprimanded the “uneducated,” as you put it. I assume you mean unschooled, nor did I reprimand such people. Many of the unschooled are highly educated and many of the schooled are not. The essence of my article is an analysis of a propaganda drive of long-standing aimed at all kinds of people to convince them that aliens were out there and might be coming to get them. Similar to: “Here come the Russians.” Pure distraction from the truth, like The X Files and the N Y Times. Perhaps my joke at the end didn’t strike you as funny, but here’s a local newspaper report from yesterday that may amuse you – maybe not. Synchronicity some might say.
https://www.berkshireeagle.com/arts_and_culture/berkshirelandscapes/ufo-thom-reed-park-wedding-sheffield/collection_1aaca47c-d415-11eb-b826-bb769a2d05fa.html#13

Kevin
Kevin
Jul 1, 2021 2:59 AM
Reply to  Edward Curtin

so u dont believe in aliens or u dont believe in UFO/UAP?

Edward Curtin
Edward Curtin
Jul 1, 2021 9:39 AM
Reply to  Kevin

I believe thousands of people over 75 years have seen UFOs. I don’t believe in aliens from outer space.

niko
niko
Jun 29, 2021 10:02 AM

I feel like an alien myself when so many supposedly of my own kind go marching lockstep into the New Normal.

Cascadian
Cascadian
Jun 29, 2021 10:43 AM
Reply to  niko

I don’t, I just feel very alone.

alecto
alecto
Jun 29, 2021 8:39 AM

I don’t see why there shouldn’t be aliens out there somewhere, why should we be the only ones inhabiting the Universe?

Kevin
Kevin
Jul 1, 2021 3:00 AM
Reply to  alecto

exactly.

George Mc
George Mc
Jun 29, 2021 8:06 AM

I often suspected that The X Files was at least partly about discrediting conspiracy theory. If Mulder was truly trying to find out the truth then why would he have to “believe”? And I recall a later episode in which a “Right Wing” ranter (specifically called “Right Wing”) was coming up with, amongst other things, “Problem Reaction Solution”i.e. a perfectly valid approach to enquiry.

Koba
Koba
Jun 29, 2021 9:24 AM
Reply to  George Mc

I remember a time when the left were smeared as conspiracy theorists and we were put in the same category as militia men and ardent doomsday evangelists! and Now they help the conspirators! Pathetic.

Harry Rogers
Harry Rogers
Jun 29, 2021 2:12 AM

It’s said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit and Edward excels in this article. Generally I accept sarcasm but when it raise its head in the form of intellectual arrogance then it requires a simple response.

Whats the problem with people believing in UFO’s etc etc.? Whats the problem with belief in one or a dozen gods?Whats the problem with disbelief in many areas of so called science.? 

The only people it seems to desperately upset are the people who dress up in white coats which immediately gives some of them a sense of internal power which is generally confirmed by an unsuspecting or ignorant public.

The academics strut the world stage today like little Caesars as they demean and frown on the “unqualified” masses.

Such delusion is inevitable as they mull with similar heretics.

The best solution is simply to ignore them as they are mostly very insecure little prats “holding up the traffic” of the passage of real life. 

As for the masses ….believe what you want!

Captain Birdheart
Captain Birdheart
Jun 29, 2021 2:40 AM
Reply to  Harry Rogers

Really good points, Harry,

Creating a great imbalance in people seems to be (part of) the plan.. Nobody knows what we really are. Of course, the hidden knowledge of freemasonary and the church, and those we aren’t allowed to criticize would say otherwise. All about power and who is in their club.

I maintain a set of conflicting ‘beliefs’, or thoughts but stick to simple decency and ‘whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to another person’.

Cascadian
Cascadian
Jun 29, 2021 10:48 AM
Reply to  Harry Rogers

Quite right too! You go right ahead and believe in gods, ufos, vanishingly small exocytopic vesicles labelled by the Romans as ‘poison’ and ‘The Science’. I prefer critical thinking and evaluation of evidence.

Howard
Howard
Jun 29, 2021 2:55 PM
Reply to  Harry Rogers

This is a job for our old buddy Donald Rumsfeld with his “known knowns” and “unknown knowns.”

Extraterrestrials visiting Earth falls outside either of Mr Rumsfeld’s categories – it’s an “unknown unknown.” The existence of extraterrestrials, however, would be an “unknown known” in that it is the height of absurdity to believe Earth alone contains living beings.

The existence of UFOs would be a “known known” in that the military is always designing and testing new ways to murder people. Every new fangled aircraft is a UFO until the military lets the people in on what it’s doing (good luck with that!).

So, really, the only UFOs we have to worry about are the real ones – the military’s weapons of mass destruction.

les online
les online
Jun 29, 2021 1:31 AM

i think my mother was an alien… not sure about her old man… something odd about my brothers and sisters, too… they’re all Normal… I’m certain the BodySnatchers moved in…
They’re all Good Workers, do their best for The Economy, watch a lot of teevee… or maybe i’m an orphan… i used to read a lot of SF… one of my favourites was Orson Scott-Card… though Enders Game was a shit movie…

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 11:53 PM

I meant Money is worth nothing the paper it’s written on.

Captain Birdheart
Captain Birdheart
Jun 28, 2021 11:51 PM

Whoa ! Imagine (admitting) that you have not seen 2001, Star Wars/Trek or read any science fiction ! That’s a joke, right ?

I’ve had a UFO, (UAP, now!) experience, pretty good one too, lasting over 5 minutes, with 5 different ‘things’, showing well ! Can’t know if they were from here, though. Weirdest thing was that I was completely calm the whole time (and sober !) and just thought, ‘well, that was strange’ !

Talking of strange, here is Robert Sepehr on this stuff recently.

Tomoola Sitchin
Tomoola Sitchin
Jun 29, 2021 1:26 AM

I had a UFO experience walking home from work along the canal one very dark night in November 1972. It was a very bright object and I had never seen anything like it before, nor have I since. It may have been the work of clever men, though maybe not. At my age, I expect it to remain unidentified, so I content myself with the certain knowledge that things actually exist, which defy logical or easy explanation. Most people don’t know that.

Captain Birdheart
Captain Birdheart
Jun 29, 2021 2:59 AM

Thanks Tomoola,

Good memory or maybe an unforgettable experience !

Mine was more recent, a few years ago, in my brothers’ garden, at night. Four, (maybe car-sized) bright white ‘orbs’ moving slowly by, very obviously, over a populated area, about 1 km away, then suddenly speeding up and moving up past the clouds (moon-lit night) and away.

Then,(check this out !), looked directly up, and saw a smaller white light directly above me, ca. 100 metres up. After a few seconds it spiralled up at massive speed into space!

‘Well, that was strange’ I thought !

mgeo
mgeo
Jun 29, 2021 12:32 PM

The author is struggling with an imponderable, but wants to appear as if he has something significant to say.

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 11:49 PM

8 billion people and we let a handful of pretend rich people control us?Money is worth nothing on the paper it’s written on,Paper that’s all.

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 29, 2021 12:02 AM
Reply to  Annie

Blaming the victim.
(8 billion people and we let a handful of pretend rich people control public education?
Banking? Media? Big Anything? Secret services? Legislation? Policies? etc.)

When money was worth gold it was also used as carrot and stick.
They (THE they) used it as an Archimedes Lever to bring to or keep society
in it’s current position.

les online
les online
Jun 28, 2021 11:44 PM

‘Artificial Intelligence’ is a left-brain idea… just a clever calculating device… Which doesnt have any emotional intelligence – right brain ‘imput’. Call it ‘thinking’, but it’s still a robot…
Sometimes they are clever, like that one called Karl Schwab – a function-functionary… no need to transfer his brain into a machine body… a steel band holds his brain in a vice, and one has his heart in a vice-tight grip… well, he’s already a cyborg, isnt he !

So. Cyborgs already rule, dont they !?

James Robertson
James Robertson
Jun 28, 2021 11:43 PM

I generally enjoy Edward’s work but all I learned from this is that he has a near obsessive devotion to Bob Dylan.

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 29, 2021 12:06 AM

Philosemitism is best enjoyed in small doses. /sorry not sorry

les online
les online
Jun 29, 2021 6:11 AM
Reply to  Mishko

bob dylan is a sountrack to my life too (as is The fab Four, The Stones, The Big O).. you had to be there… (bob provides some quotable ‘observations’ though.)

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 11:41 PM

All you have to think is do you want your children your grandchildren to be exterminated to be controlled to live in a grey world?Well they do and we are more.I know it’s good protests marches but is that achieving anything?Is it stopping lockdowns masks?Its been 15 months to flatten the curve how far do they want the curve?To hell and back?

Martha
Martha
Jun 28, 2021 11:04 PM

I met a couple who saw a silver disk rise out of Narragansett Bay and fly off at great speed. They had no idea what it was or whose it was, but they saw it. I didn’t see it, but I have no reason to not believe them.

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 10:48 PM

Be like a gust of wind,The winds not thinking it’s just doing what it needs to do without thought now be that wind.

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 29, 2021 12:11 AM
Reply to  Annie

Yes the wind bloweth where it listeth, but even so we are informed
that one of the titles of Satan is “prince of the air”.

Richard Greene
Richard Greene
Jun 28, 2021 10:27 PM

On the subject of Unidentified Flying Objects, Mr. Curtin is a imbecile.
I just wasted five minutes of my life reading his blathering, thinking it was intended to be funny.
It was not funny, or interesting.
This is a meaningless word salad.
Why this tripe was published here, or anywhere else, is a mystery.
Richard Greene
Bingham Farms, Michigan

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 11:28 PM
Reply to  Richard Greene

I thought that,But I think there’s a method to his madness read between the lines.

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 29, 2021 12:14 AM
Reply to  Richard Greene

I too prefer Jacques Vallee on the subject of UFO’s / UAP’s.
Mr. Curtin is sharing a meta view.

Jeffrey Strahl
Jeffrey Strahl
Jun 28, 2021 5:53 PM

Amazing. Sometimes, Edward Curtin writes stuff that’s so profound. And, other times,….. So, a recurring theme in his work, people use psychedelics because the CIA pushed these substances? Did CIA agents take time machines back thousands of years to induce tribal people on every continent to use them? 🙂

Sanjoy Mahajan
Sanjoy Mahajan
Jun 28, 2021 6:40 PM
Reply to  Jeffrey Strahl

John Potash’s _Drugs as Weapons Against Us_ goes into distressing detail about the CIA’s use of drugs as weapons against movements for peace and freedom. Counterpunch, before it became Counterfraud, published much on the CIA’s drug running.

Jeffrey Strahl
Jeffrey Strahl
Jun 29, 2021 12:30 AM
Reply to  Sanjoy Mahajan

Weapons against movements for peace and freedom? I was alive and aware in the ’60s, there seemed to be a very strong connection between people using psychedelics and cannabis and their level of political activity, i was antagonistic to both at the time so i noticed. Likewise in Italy in 1977. Counterpunch also pushed against any notion that 9/11 was an inside job, still does.

Sanjoy Mahajan
Sanjoy Mahajan
Jun 29, 2021 3:19 AM
Reply to  Jeffrey Strahl

And CP still says that JFK’s assassination doesn’t matter. They are rightly called Counterfraud. But on the use of psychedelics among the peace movemnt: That evidence, which I don’t dispute, could cut either way. The CIA could have provided drug to those groups, or marketed drugs as well countercultural, in order to undermine particularly those groups. Potash provides many examples.

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 29, 2021 12:22 AM
Reply to  Jeffrey Strahl

Perhaps Mr. Curtin is under the impression that Mind Kontrol and Culture Creation
as effected by the CIA through the shortcut of drugs are not necessarily a net positive
in their accumulated effects on society?

Or you might be positing a straw man.

Jeffrey Strahl
Jeffrey Strahl
Jun 29, 2021 12:26 AM
Reply to  Mishko

Is the near-universal use of psychedelics by tribal indigenous people the world over, starting thousands of years ago, due to the CIA?

Edwige
Edwige
Jun 28, 2021 5:48 PM

Modern UFO “sightings” don’t tend to be saucer-shaped:

https://burningblogger.com/2021/06/18/whats-with-the-pyramid-shaped-ufos/

Our self-professed elite overlords do like their Egyptology.

P.S. That site has some very good material on the Middle East. He’s spotted some strange things going on concerning Jordan recently.

rob2
rob2
Jun 28, 2021 7:23 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Back in May commenter “zyxzevn” at the Corbett Report linked to a pretty convincing explanation for those pyramids:

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 10:25 PM
Reply to  rob2

I don’t think I know I don’t believe in whatever government says anymore,I’ve lost faith in science,Used to be look at this this is what’s happening rather than we witnessed it now you have to believe because we are telling you,No if I see it experience it then I believe it.If I see a ufo and grey aliens abducting me then I’ll believe it.But something sinister is going on with all these people getting abducted or reporting sightings,Don’t sit well with me.

rob2
rob2
Jun 28, 2021 5:31 PM

I started this essay not glancing to see who authored it, and then half way through realized, ahhh, it’s gotta be Edward Curtain and sure enough 🙂 ! I always enjoy his meanderings.

A book I started a couple months ago (but which, unfortunately, lost shallow ol’ me due to its excruciatingly, long-winded rabbit trails) takes a very deep, philosophical dive into the whole UFO plot which I think would track closely with the gist expressed here. It’s called “Invoking the Beyond:The Kantian Rift, Mythologized Menaces, and the Quest for the New Man” by Paul D. Collins & Phillip D. Collins; but still worth a look, imho:

iuniverse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/822540-invoking-the-beyond

Jim McDonagh
Jim McDonagh
Jun 28, 2021 4:37 PM

An entertaining piece . I agree that goal posts of human reality have shifted and the certainty that many of us once embraced has evaporated . I used to believe they put a man on the moon , now not so much? The X-Files have become credible instead of campy humor?

rubberheid
rubberheid
Jun 28, 2021 5:34 PM
Reply to  Jim McDonagh

physics, at school, mechanics/kinetics whatever they call it now – so we can fire a rocket (fast gravity defying bullet) at our moon, so accurately (space artillery), that it captures that moon’s weaker gravity, bends perfectly, …… enough. Pish.
No doubt i missed a lot of the science and maths shtuff but i do belive NASA have since “lost” the technology…

Jim McDonagh
Jim McDonagh
Jun 28, 2021 10:06 PM
Reply to  rubberheid

The idea that the Nixon regime was able to put a man on the moon at the height of the Vietnam War now seems laughable and extremely unlikely?

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 3:57 PM

I don’t get the moral of the story?You didn’t believe in aliens then you found a piece of metal now you do?Or still don’t?Help?

Edward Curtin
Edward Curtin
Jun 28, 2021 4:45 PM
Reply to  Annie

Annie – it’s a joke.

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 8:30 PM
Reply to  Edward Curtin

Oh how?I can take a joke is it because he doesn’t actually believe,Like a metaphor?I didn’t believe in aliens and I still don’t but it’s easy to dupe people into believing something?

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 29, 2021 12:33 AM
Reply to  Annie

/off topic

The sense of humor of the so-called elite is pretty grim and dark.
As can be seen from the registrations of the White House
Correspondents Dinners.

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 8:48 PM
Reply to  Edward Curtin

I think maybe I don’t understand somethings,I see what what I’m told I don’t question because I’m probably abit gullible.I’m slowly learning,That not everybody has your best interest at heart.The governments,The rich,They didn’t get rich by being honest.Im slowly learning now.

Howard
Howard
Jun 28, 2021 3:40 PM

The premier question is why would anyone want to believe anything? The moment something is believed, it gets weaponized. “Knowledge Is Power” they say. And belief is knowledge on its way to becoming powerful.

Thanks but no thanks. I’ll stick to my often senseless opinions which I am loath to provide even the slightest evidence for. Now that’s progress.

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 28, 2021 3:37 PM

Not knowing your enemy is nevertheless generally considered to be a bad thing.

“2001 A Space Odyssey” did more than plug into science-fiction, or distract from ordinary worldly problems. It pointed to modern human naivety and how its limitless, unthinking faith in technological progress was blinding it to the natural universe itself.

It was certainly fiction, but then so is all art, come to think of it, and we can’t live as human beings without that.
2001 was, of course, an unusually well-thought-out movie, while the current state of sci-fi today is pretty much worthy of all the contempt one can muster…

Edwige
Edwige
Jun 28, 2021 3:55 PM
Reply to  wardropper

The whole ‘stargate’ sequence is about ascending beyond the 22nd degree in Freemasonry, above technical skill and into the spiritual realm. The checkerboard floor of the hotel is an obvious Freemasonic duality symbol.

The monolith was going to be a plexiglas pyramid but they couldn’t get it to look right. A bit like the Louvre whic was designed by the brother of Tina Weymouth, the bassist in Talking Heads. Their father just happens to be an admiral.

There was a very good analysis of the film ‘2001: a Masonic Odyssey’ although it currently seems to have been deleted.

And I think we wll know by now what Arthur C. Clarke was doing in Sri Lanka all those years….

Howard
Howard
Jun 28, 2021 5:00 PM
Reply to  Edwige

I have no reason to question what you’re saying. However, I would only point out that most human thought – especially once it’s transcribed into a work of fiction – is such that almost any scenario can be read into it.

Even everything I’ve ever written could easily be shown to have Masonic, Skull & Bones or some other secret cult driving its imagery and plot. Bottom line: there’s nothing new under the sun.

NixonScraypes
NixonScraypes
Jun 28, 2021 5:52 PM
Reply to  Edwige

I found the film very boring, I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. Clark’s Childhood’s End, the same. It wasn’t until I heard Bill Cooper’s hour of the time explanation of it’s masonic meaning that I realised why it had been talked up so much. It’s not imagination, it’s not art, it’s just playing with your mind.

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 29, 2021 12:40 AM
Reply to  NixonScraypes

Alledgedly satellites factor into this narrative as well.

NixonScraypes
NixonScraypes
Jun 29, 2021 3:29 PM
Reply to  Mishko

The esoteric or the exoteric narrative?

Howard
Howard
Jun 29, 2021 3:56 AM
Reply to  NixonScraypes

Freemason is an open secret I take it. I mean, isn’t the real freemasonry supposed to be limited to 33rd degree and higher? So, why would they put it in a movie? Doesn’t add up.

After awhile, this current fashion of attributing everything in Western culture to either Freemasonry or the CIA starts to wear thin and become frayed at the seams.

NixonScraypes
NixonScraypes
Jun 29, 2021 3:24 PM
Reply to  Howard

It’s the meaning of the images or symbols used. The real story is written between the lines so that the profane will not see it. Thus the initiate and the un- illuminated both feel pleased with themselves and superior at seeing and not seeing the same thing. They know human nature. What did old fashioned Confucius say? Which numbers are you adding up, oh wise one?

Peter
Peter
Jun 29, 2021 4:06 AM
Reply to  Edwige

The dagobas in Sri Lanka are apparently the largest structures in antiquity besides the pyramids.

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 3:12 PM

It’s all in the mind,You live and think through your conscious as part of a whole consciousness that connects each and every living thing.

Jos
Jos
Jun 28, 2021 2:06 PM

Looking at the dates when the WHO / UN / NASA came into existence and the subsequent ‘exposure’ of UFO sightings makes me feel pretty certain that it is all a psy op to make us believe that space is real. We’re in a simulation and this is known by a significant minority of people in charge. Nick Bostrom, the Oxford professor of the future of humanity, even came up with a formula to prove we almost certainly are in a constructed reality. The problem is that it’s getting too difficult to keep a lid on this so endless global surveillance has become the only way to ensure that it doesn’t get out because of the terror and betrayal which will be experienced by the masses. I actually feel quite relieved having looked at the supposed near earth objects set to collide with the earth in the not too distant future. So all the talk of imminent alien exposures / encounters in the near future (easily faked with existing technology) and the trips to the Moon, Mars, Venus etc are to persuade us that the universe exists, is infinite and threatening and will serve its purpose to keep us endlessly afraid and subservient to the god of Science.

Howard
Howard
Jun 28, 2021 3:44 PM
Reply to  Jos

When you accuse this Oxford professor of having come “up with a formula,” I would ask if this “formula” is a mathematical construct. If so, please send him back the the drawing board to re-think his holographic depiction of reality.

Morgenstemning
Morgenstemning
Jun 28, 2021 7:34 PM
Reply to  Jos

If it’s a constructed reality, surely the terror and betrayal which the masses will experience, on discovering that it is a constructed reality, are part of the constructed reality?

Annie
Annie
Jun 28, 2021 10:14 PM
Reply to  Jos

Like computer code in our dna?Either it is or we are being lied to.

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 29, 2021 12:45 AM
Reply to  Jos

Science or THE science was perhaps meant to devolve into this stagnant paradigm
in which nothing ever changes, especially not our unwavering appreciation
and respect for people that wear white lab coats.

Hashtag yay science! The best science is Mengele science!

dr death
dr death
Jun 28, 2021 1:47 PM

but isn’t scientism merely a religion, systems of ‘belief’ come in all flavours…

aleister crowleys little demon aiwass, bore a striking resemblance to the the little grey men of pop culture.. well before ‘rosswell’.. then of course there are gnomes and fairies, depictions of glowing orbs and disk in ancient art, bhagavad-gita etc etc..

all so called ‘knowledge’ merely leads to greater ignorance and eventually suicidal hubris, it is the ‘Ouroboros’ of ancient mythology..

the curse of the ‘apple’…

Mishko
Mishko
Jun 28, 2021 10:16 PM
Reply to  dr death

Not Aiwass, Lam looks like the current grayliens.

dr death
dr death
Jun 28, 2021 11:12 PM
Reply to  Mishko

ahhh yes ….little lam..
thank you..

les online
les online
Jun 29, 2021 1:47 AM
Reply to  dr death

Red Delicious is the only ‘apple’ i think still tastes apple-e… all the rest ? picked before ripe, kept in cool-storage, pissy taste- just dont cut-it… standardised apples for standardised people…

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Jun 29, 2021 2:08 AM
Reply to  les online

I never understand why people don’t grow fruit trees in their garden instead of ‘ornamental’ varieties of cherry etc. With dwarf apple trees you don’t even need that much space. People have been so separated from the concept of providing any of their own food.

les online
les online
Jun 29, 2021 5:05 AM

Many years ago in North Perth, West Australia, one of our southern European immigrants turned the verge at the front of his house into a small vegie patch – mostly tomato plants… The local council, those local power-hungry types, threatened… but ‘cooler heads prevailed’… Seems that as the council can hold you responsible for the verge upkeep, well… happy ending…

myself around then, in my Johnny Appleseed persona, often planted fruit-tree
seedlings in amongst the shrubs in public/council gardens (We didnt have a Mrs Thatcher forcing their sell off)… But the attendant gardeners ripped them out as if they were weeds…(Dandelions are not weeds, but dont pick-to-eat any growing near roads as they can absorb the toxins spewed out by motorcars…)

These days, there’s rarely a bustrip when, looking at the trees aligning the roadways as i pass them, i wish they were all fruit trees, every variety… i know the objections about upkeep – they’re all bullshit… I’d like to see the idea implemented though only time will tell if i’ll get over murdering the existing trees to plant the fruities…

(In Perth it seemed every backyard had a Lemon tree growing. In densely populated Sydney lemons over the past few months were up to $2 -2.50 each.
Shocking ! One of the biggest suburban shopping centres is built over what used to be be a thriving market garden… The supermarkets on that ‘paved-over’ garden obtain the same produce from Far afield… More Shockings !!!)

rubberheid
rubberheid
Jul 1, 2021 5:40 PM

hell yeah. And persuading them sense-wise fails against fashion.

QuickDraw
QuickDraw
Jun 28, 2021 12:23 PM

Religious belief is an anthropological universal–all cultures have this trait. Science is just a religion in the guise of so-called rationality. “Scientists” are no different than “religionists” when it comes to promulgating and defending their dogma.

Regarding the UFO nonsense, it is related to the above. There were no UFOs prior to man achieving the ability to fly–I could find only three reported encounters prior to this and they don’t sound any more credible than what we hear now. It is a post-war phenomenon related to all the social upheaval concomitant with the huge disaster of WWII.

The evil ones behind the curtain know exactly what they are doing. They know exactly how stupid the vast majority of people are and so they simply “push the buttons” necessary to achieve their desire result and voila! people bow down to the new god of Covid. They truly are a cult, these Branch Covidians.

Sophie - Admin1
Admin
Sophie - Admin1
Jun 28, 2021 12:51 PM
Reply to  QuickDraw

Not staking a belief in alien visitation, but people did report UFO type sightings before the invention of flight. Not least Elijah being taken up to heaven while still living, in a “chariot of fire”. 🤷‍♀️

grr
grr
Jun 28, 2021 11:24 PM

Reports of visitatiions and sightings are as old as mankind.

magumba
magumba
Jun 29, 2021 12:33 AM
Reply to  grr

So is Ergot

rubberheid
rubberheid
Jul 1, 2021 5:44 PM
Reply to  magumba

hahah excellent!

Mehitabel
Mehitabel
Jun 28, 2021 1:05 PM
Reply to  QuickDraw

Just a quick search for pre-airplane stories of strange aerial objects

‘mystery airships’ seen in 19th century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship

‘celestial phenomena’ over Germany in 1561
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1561_celestial_phenomenon_over_Nuremberg

medieval ‘aliens’
https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/ufo-history2.htm

But don’t let a few facts get in the way of your awesome theory

Tim Drayton
Tim Drayton
Jun 28, 2021 2:23 PM
Reply to  Mehitabel

The strangest story of all, in my opinion, comes from a local newspaper in Texas in the 19th Century about a resident of Mars who arrives in the town in a flying contraption, stays for a while then returns home, all reported factually.

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 28, 2021 3:42 PM
Reply to  Tim Drayton

Of course the stuff people drank in those days would lead most of them to believe their horses were visitors from Mars – and spoke English…

Howard
Howard
Jun 28, 2021 3:49 PM
Reply to  Tim Drayton

The part about the alien’s returning home certainly adds credence to the story. Who in their right mind would want to stay?

Peter Abraham
Peter Abraham
Jun 28, 2021 12:19 PM
Edward Curtin
Edward Curtin
Jun 28, 2021 12:14 PM
Ort
Ort
Jun 28, 2021 10:10 PM
Reply to  Edward Curtin

Looks like a blast!

It’s just too bad that some of the guests were obviously, if expertly, photoshopped out of the images.

comment image

Mehitabel
Mehitabel
Jun 28, 2021 11:37 AM

Thing is tho – the world really is way weird. Regardless of how that line might be pushed, it remains true.

Subatomic particles can travel backwards in time and communicate across space and time faster than the speed of light.

ESP has been proved to exist in scientific experiment, not just in people but in animals.

Unwesternized people accept other ways of knowing as being as real as the five senses.

It’s been proved people know when they are being watched even when they can’t hear or see the watcher.

That’s just scratching the surface. We hold on to what we call ‘reality’ by fiercely denying 50% of our own and others’ experience.

Just sayin’

Howard
Howard
Jun 28, 2021 3:57 PM
Reply to  Mehitabel

As to ESP and being aware of being watched, there are undoubtedly more way to sense things than merely our famous five senses.

Here’s a good example: when I would go downstairs into the basement (when I actually lived in a house with a basement), if there were a spider on a ledge or the wall, it didn’t really head for cover until I turned its way and saw it. It absolutely, positively knew that I had spotted it – and the exact moment when I became aware of its existence.

(Granted I didn’t know what it was doing before I saw it; but my little story works best if I insist it wasn’t moving – otherwise I would have noticed it earlier.)

my parents said know
my parents said know
Jun 29, 2021 1:55 AM
Reply to  Howard

If you have a pet lizard that eats insects, you will note that the insect clearly knows it is being eyed by the lizard. It freezes until the lizard gets bored and looks away.
Glisten to glisten- eyes to eyes. Anything with eyes knows when that glisten is aimed at them. Lenses also work- a bird usually knows when a lens is focussed on them. And who has not spied on a distant person with a binoculars, only to be caught in the act.

Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings
Jun 28, 2021 11:26 AM

I don’t know about you but i tend to believe in the eyes and ears, and the logic of the brain to sort it all out. I would suspect that quite a few vaxxers believe in UFO’s.

The whole concept is a handy way for gov’t’s to test in secret and skip compensation claims from ranchers. It’s also great for tapping funds which the military spend on creating ever more elaborate ways to kill and dominate other humans.

Cast your mind back to the covid scam and the panic propaganda which ensued. Cast your mind back to the weapons of mass destruction, the Islamic threat. These were faked threats the NWO moved heaven and earth for and couldn’t stop pushing 24/7.

If aliens were out there or doing clandestine visit to the Earth, there is obviously a problem for warmongers and the paranoid and greedy. Military and political world domination seems to be big concern to some on this planet. Their new world order domination is under the ultimate threat from an extraterrestrial force they cannot control but their gov’t stooges spend decades denying it? It seems a little odd that they would treat this threat so lightly if it existed.

The US military/NWO are telling us that the ultimate threat is real but for now they are rather busy with the natives.

shamen
shamen
Jun 28, 2021 11:13 AM

Carter was avid reader and interviewed may decent underground authors and early bloggers.
I thought xFile was great
Loads of theses story lines where in many many books decades before he was able to put it to weekly film picture.
Not long after the political lot used similar story lines to help sell shape their new fake leader and co opted a movement.

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
Jun 28, 2021 10:57 AM

Ed, try taking a course – not just one hit – of DMT, or ayahuasca, then see what you think. More to the point, see who you meet and what they tell you.

As the basic scientific method asserts, intense direct personal experience – aka experiment – trumps intellectual theorising every time! (Works also for doing esoteric practice in a discipline that suits your temperament; though to get the convincing results you do have to put in the time with those. The psychedelics are quicker…)

Also, try musing on the hypothesis that UFOs/UAPs are a variant on poltergeists, but got up by the human minds at the focus of the phenomenon in the sci-fi fancy dress that’s so popular in our time. Anyone familiar – again through direct personal experience rather than just waffly hypothesising – with paranormal events will know just how convincing this hypothesis is. It took me twenty years of searching for a really reliable method – Ken Batcheldor’s sitter group technique (qv) – before I got unequivocally clear-cut experiences of the spectacular capabilities of psi; but once you have the acclimatisation and track record (AATREC) that that gives you they are – er – rather convincing…! 🙂

Rhisiart Gwilym
Rhisiart Gwilym
Jun 28, 2021 11:17 AM

PS: Always be aware of the presence of Trickster/Coyote/Puck/Loki/Q in these matters. Be prepared for piss-taking giggle-games getting laid on you by that aspect of basic reality. Never get too po-faced about it. Take it all with light-hearted cheerfulness (strongly re-inforced with don Juan Matus’s Unbending Intent) and you’ll be fine. 🙂

Edwige
Edwige
Jun 28, 2021 9:28 AM

“From the Covid conspiracy documentary “Plandemic” to the idea that we’re living in a black hole created by the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider when we discovered the Higgs boson.”

Carter is an admitted Freemason whose associates have said hangs around with deep state types who feed him story-lines. What he’s doing there is implying an equivalence. And in the second half he’s muddled three things together that are separate. Is something strange going on at CERN? Probably – that film of a Satanic ritual suggested so. The attempt to create some sort of stargate or portal would be my guess. Does that mean we are living in a black hole or they found the Higgs boson? No. It’s funny on the latter how mainstream sources go on about Higgs and his boson endlessly while quietly retiring Higgs more important idea that there must be a field for the current theories of matter to work.

On a related but slightly different angle, it’s not widely known how many religious cults have forms of exo-theology in their belief systems. Most people will know this about Scientology or Heaven’s Gate for example – but how many people realise it is also true of Jim Jones, Crowleyism, the Nation of Islam and Mormonism? Gosh, doesn’t it start to look as if all these cults were written from the same script and therefore come ultimately from the same source?

Mehitabel
Mehitabel
Jun 28, 2021 11:42 AM
Reply to  Edwige

Oooor just maybe there’s buried race memory at work? I highly doubt Joseph Smith, petty grifter from upstate NY, was working for some deep state agenda when he started peddling his ‘new religion’. He just said stuff that came in to his head, like all plausible grifters do. Some of it was BS but maybe some was pulled from the collective unconscious without him knowing.

Howard
Howard
Jun 28, 2021 4:10 PM
Reply to  Mehitabel

I think you imply an excellent point. Namely, that these kinds of systems which spring naturally from one single individual have far greater moment than something created by a committee or commissioned by a potentate.

As gullible and mindless as most people seem to be, I do think they can spot a charlatan a mile away. Sadly, though, we live at a time when it’s all but impossible for sincerity to get through the complex system of filters in place to weed it out.

Brianboro
Brianboro
Jun 28, 2021 9:20 AM

Here are some points to consider about the question of whether extra terrestrial life exists or not. The Universe as far as we know is approximately 13 billion years old. There are as far as we know an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe. In our own galaxy ( the Milky Way) as far as we know they’re approximately 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. How many could support life as we know according to some scientists in this field approximately 40 billion. Age of the Earth approximately 4.5 billion years old. Age of known civilisation on Earth between 10-6 thousand years old. The old saying of you know you are getting old when you realise you don’t know everything comes to mind when people can state with absolutely certainty that extra terrestrial life doesn’t exist !

Seansaighdeor
Seansaighdeor
Jun 28, 2021 10:48 AM
Reply to  Brianboro

Lots of assumptions there including the accepted wisdom that all of these numbers are correct and accurate.

Brianborou.
Brianborou.
Jun 28, 2021 11:42 AM
Reply to  Seansaighdeor

Note I used the word ” approximately ” note I used the phrase ” as far as we know “. Just like it says on tin. Now, go back and look at what I have written instead of believing what I wrote !

Seansaighdeor
Seansaighdeor
Jun 28, 2021 11:54 AM
Reply to  Brianborou.

Your comment uses the the ‘approximations’ of the cult of science. Science continually uses the phrase ‘as far as we know’ which you have coined also while then stating that this is indeed what it believes.

You are using the same technique repeating what Science believes regardless of the caveat so you either believe those numbers and are using them to make a point or your comment is essentially meaningless.

Which is it?

Brianboro
Brianboro
Jun 28, 2021 12:16 PM
Reply to  Seansaighdeor

Now, approximation is according to the dictionary definition a “ guess or estimate “ as it is used in everyday life eg how tall is the man or woman approximately… . Now lets analyse your second point “ as far as we know “ . Again according to the dictionary definition it can mean eg “ as far as I remember “ to indicate it is not entirely accurate. This expression is used frequently in every day in many different situations eg how far is it to the next petrol station answer as far as I know about …. It seems you are some what confused about what I have stated. If you have information to the contrary regarding the age of the universe, the number of galaxies in the universe, the number of stars in the galaxy, the number of stars which could contain life, the age of the first civilisation and mankind knows everything, please provide evidence instead of digressing into polemics !!!

Willem
Willem
Jun 28, 2021 8:21 AM

I have seen and read a lot of SF, and love it. But it is make believe as in that humans have a special place in the universe (other than that of ants, cockroaches, plants). It is also make believe in a kind that explains the universe through some simple equations.

Of SF, I like Sagan’s ‘contact’ as at least it is not about a universe conquered by humans, or whether we are saved by aliens or are (about to be) destroyed by aliens. It’s about: working in a team, while at the same trying to understand humans’ deepest fears and loves without exploiting it.

SF themes sometimes are earthly problems disguised as in satire as for instance in starship troopers (where the heroes are actually the nazi’s).

The bug problem also has led to nice SF as in 12 monkeys or as in ‘the war of the worlds’. It’s a bit unlikely though that an alien invasion knows nothing about bugs (as in war of the worlds) and the 12 monkey thing makes the viewer believe that killer bugs are absolutely invisible, odorless, etc and spread through air and can be made in a chemical lab.

If covid has told me something, it is that odorless, invisible bugs that spread through air and are made in a lab are most likely themes that perfectly fit in SF and nowhere else, given that is fiction based on science. But the storytelling is quite powerful, and has led that swaths of people believe that the fiction is science.

SF can be a useful sociological construct as into trying to understand why it can be so entertaining and compelling to viewers and readers. But believing in it, leads to all sorts of problems as we now see with the Covid madness being unfold.

Belief in Science is a contradiction in terms, similar as in Science-Fiction. One should step away from it, and trying to understand it as a cool observer, but one should not consume it. Is my take.

Edwige
Edwige
Jun 28, 2021 9:17 AM
Reply to  Willem

“it is make believe as in that humans have a special place in the universe”.

And yet red-shift shows everything is moving away from us. Possible interpretations of that:
1) The universe is shaped like a giant balloon that is being inflated. Believe it or not,that is the current “official” explanation.
2) Red-shift has been completely misinterpreted in which case evrything based on it has to be dumped. Goodbye Big Bang then – or maybe not because the curent model of the BIg Bang requires matter to have moved beyond the speed of light which their own physics says is impossible. Two parts of their physics can obviously contradict each other with no problem – they just hope nobody much notices.
3) The Earth is indeed the center of the universe.

Now I don’t know that 3 is correct but it doesn’t seem to me obviously more preposterous than any of the other explanations. It’s curious what a revulsion some people have to that concept. Hubble called it philosophically unacceptable and an absolute horror – why? Is humanity grasping that it is special so dangerous? Or is it, following on from that we live in a created realm, fear of judgment?

Seansaighdeor
Seansaighdeor
Jun 28, 2021 11:34 AM
Reply to  Edwige

No more preposterous than inflation theory.

Howard
Howard
Jun 28, 2021 4:23 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Just by pure chance, the Earth really could be the center of the universe. Unless, of course, the universe really is expanding. (I’ve done all the calculations and I’m still mystified.)

But my theory of time permits what appears to be movement beyond the speed of light. If time is created by “living” entities, then it didn’t always exist – so everything up to that point happened “all at once” (didn’t Whitney Houston say so?).

Therefore, some bits of matter (such as quantum entangled particles) remain outside time; and could easily bridge billions of light years in a nano-second.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I smile whenever I think of particles becoming entangled.

Jim McDonagh
Jim McDonagh
Jun 28, 2021 4:53 PM
Reply to  Edwige

Vast resources have been expended on the How of the Universe, leaving the Why to be deciphered by fanatical religionist and demagogue’s of all political stripes?

Seansaighdeor
Seansaighdeor
Jun 28, 2021 11:38 AM
Reply to  Willem

Humans have a special place in the Universe. It is right here on the beautiful planet earth.

If you don’t consider the earth a beautiful place to be than perhaps humans (or certainly the ones making all the big decisions) should start to take some responsibility for it.

But If you think of humans as ants or cockroaches than I guess you will never expect any better of them so what is the point?

Big Bad Jon
Big Bad Jon
Jun 28, 2021 6:01 PM
Reply to  Seansaighdeor

Good point, but I’m always going to consider Matt Hancock as a cockroach 🙂

Ort
Ort
Jun 28, 2021 10:02 PM
Reply to  Big Bad Jon

I think you owe cockroaches an apology! 😉

Big Bad Jon
Big Bad Jon
Jun 29, 2021 6:34 AM
Reply to  Ort

Dang it, you’s right, cockroaches far more lovable 🙂

rubberheid
rubberheid
Jun 28, 2021 4:37 PM
Reply to  Willem

JOIN THE MOBILE INFANTRY!!! excellent film, dripping with satire… most folks just saw a bug-hunt : ( “it’s….afraid!!” “YAAAYYYY!!”

Jim McDonagh
Jim McDonagh
Jun 28, 2021 4:49 PM
Reply to  Willem

Arthur C Clark and Isaac Asimov sit on the pinnacle of optimistic Sci-Fi .Since then it has begun a long gradual decent into dystopian pessimism .

NixonScraypes
NixonScraypes
Jun 28, 2021 6:07 PM
Reply to  Jim McDonagh

You call childhoods end optimistic? Anyway, they’re both mechanical writers.

Jim McDonagh
Jim McDonagh
Jun 28, 2021 10:17 PM
Reply to  NixonScraypes

A “bot” calling humans mechanical ? Childhoods End and the the Foundation and Empire trilogy implied that humanity had a purpose , that is no longer a widely held belief of the ruling classes , who yearn to become cyborgs . Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is now the more popular view?

Jojo
Jojo
Jun 28, 2021 6:43 AM

I say: “Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz”!

Jim McDonagh
Jim McDonagh
Jun 28, 2021 4:55 PM
Reply to  Jojo

Or in Janis’ case another 8-ball ?

les online
les online
Jun 28, 2021 5:38 AM
  • Those fascinated by ‘What’s buried under the sphynx ?’ seem drawn to the idea that the Ancients Secrets of Life, or Health, etc are to be found there… Ufologists likewise seem to think the Little Green People in their space ships will bring Cures for Every Disease, if not Worldwide enlightenment & World Peace…
  • a bit of a setback for those who dream that Humans will travel to (and Conquer) The Stars is that just circling the planet in a Spacelab impacts humans immune system…. Though it’s Good News for the Transhumanist who want to Cyborg humanity…
Fatalist
Fatalist
Jun 28, 2021 5:18 AM

James Corbet imagined an engineered UFO event a few years ago.

Perhaps a message warning us to follow Agenda 21 and the leadership of Planetary President Klaus Schwab or face annihilation at the hands of the Galactic Guardians.

You have been warned.

https://www.corbettreport.com/mainstream-ufos-vaccine-tracking-vaxxapalooza-new-world-next-week/

I know not
I know not
Jun 28, 2021 4:51 AM

The original X-files poster behind his desk said “The Truth is Out There”.

It was only in the latest version a few years back when Mulder and Scully were older and none the wiser that the poster was changed to “I want to believe”.

Oh, and it was also this latest version that insinuated we were living in a dream.
Or maybe a simulation.

Someone should ask Carter what he means by this.
Or maybe not.

rubberheid
rubberheid
Jun 28, 2021 4:43 PM
Reply to  I know not

I ran a wee social experiment back in “the the truth is out there” days: the power of flyers and posters, everybody talking about this or that venue/band/whatever they advertised. So i made up a daft wee armed, helmeted python with the caption “believe”… within 100 photcopies and a fortnight folk were talking about that too.

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Jun 28, 2021 4:40 AM

I think its important to distance our cultural interpretations of unknown phenomena from the real thing. Our culture — movies like ‘ET’ and ‘Close Encounters’ — put well worn parables into an extra-terrestial setting resulting in an entertaining tale that’s just a reflection of us. “Nothing to see here, folks.” There are occasions where we try to weave tales a bit more imaginatively (e.g. “Galaxy Quest” & “District 9”) but even then they say more about us than any alien life form.

I don’t rule out any extra-terrestial life forms but I also don’t lose any sleep over them — if its important to them they’ll reveal themselves in due course (assuming we notice). There’s lots of stuff we humans don’t know, we’ve only been about for maybe 50,000 years, civilized for maybe 5000 and scientifically and technically capable for maybe 150 at the outside, barely a blip in the life of the Earth, let alone the universe as a whole. There’s likely to be a whole lot out there that we’re clueless about.

One view of an encounter with an alien intelligence is in the movie “My Octopus Teacher”. It shows how intelligent creatures from two completely different worlds can get to know and somewhat understand each other.

Mehitabel
Mehitabel
Jun 28, 2021 11:44 AM
Reply to  Martin Usher

“You’re more intelligent than a cockroach – ever tried explaining yourself to one?”

😄

Howard
Howard
Jun 28, 2021 4:53 PM
Reply to  Mehitabel

You don’t have to explain yourself to a cockroach – they know us well enough to run and hide when they see us.

If only we could learn to run and hide when we see a Klaus Schwab or an Anthony Fauci!

Jim McDonagh
Jim McDonagh
Jun 28, 2021 5:06 PM
Reply to  Martin Usher

Alien life forms could and probably do exist beyond the range of our puny sensory arrays? Viruses could be a form of Alien probe ? Although Men in Black a fun movie assures us that aliens are in the main market capitalism who share our belief in materialism ?